Wednesday, June 24, 2015, 17:30 On Tuesday, June 23, in a dawn raid by police detectives and Yassam (Special Forces) police on a home in Yitzhar, a resident was detained on suspicion of involvement with an incident that occurred approximately six weeks previously in which Jews threw rocks at Arab vehicles near Yitzhar, in the Shomron region. The following day he was unconditionally released at the police station.
In a deliberation which took place on Tuesday, June 23 at the Petah Tikva Magistrate Court, the detainee’s remand was extended by only one day when the court rejected the police demand to extend his remand by six days. During the deliberation, it turned out that the Yitzhar resident was detained on the basis of testimony from an IDF soldier who claimed that one of the Jews who threw rocks was “blond haired with a red beard,” a description which fits many Shomron residents and certainly cannot indicate that a suspect participated in an incident. The Yitzhar resident detained in this case does not have a red beard and therefore does not even match the soldier’s description.
“The detention was superfluous and it would have been correct to have not carried it out,” said Honenu attorney Adi Kedar, who represented the Yitzhar resident. “It cannot be that the Israeli Police drags citizens out of their beds on the basis of old testimony from a soldier in which the identifying signs are merely general. There is a feeling that when it comes to residents of Yehuda and Shomron the law is interpreted differently, including the laws of evidence. My client will consider the legal options available to him in order to receive compensation for false detention.”
The above post has been corrected: The Yitzhar resident detained on suspicion of throwing rocks at Arab cars does not have a red beard and therefore does not fit the description of the suspect mentioned in the testimony of the IDF soldier.